Why raidguilds are dying out...

The numbers don't lie, anyone who kept track of the numbers, also knows that the number of raidguilds in the past few years has been dropping considerably faster than the number of subscribers. 25m guilds were the first ones to bite the dust, but even HM and normal 10m raiding is seeing guilds die at a rapid pace ever since MoP.

The reason can be summarized very simply:"Lack of new blood."

There are many reasons why new people are having such a hard time getting into the raiding scene, but to name the two most important ones:

1. "Applications". It's perhaps not the applications themselves that are at fault here, but examplary of mostly the high standards that many raidguilds have, they tend to only want to recruit people who have exactly the same gear as them or are ahead of them in progress and experience. People who are new to WoW usually won't gear up with anything than LFR and Valor gear and will have a very hard time getting accepted into any kind of raidguild. If guilds don't learn to lower their standards and to have a friendlier policy to letting new blood in then in the longterm they'll run out of anyone to recruit at all. This is a typical example of internet entropy, there are no governing bodies or studygroups that can investigate and prevent crises on the longterm. If WoW raiding had been a 'government' concern, then there would've been all sorts of recruitments measures that would force guilds to recruit newbies to assure longterm prosperity of the raiding scene, just like how modern governments need to take all sorts of measures to protect the economy or the wellbeing of subgroups, just to present a poignant comparison.

2. LFR. It satisfies the needs of most people nowadays. The average gamer tends to be very happy beating a game on easy-difficulty if they get to see same parts of the story. Few people will actually see the point in doing it on a harder difficulty setting, especially if this will mean time commitment. People simply don't like commiting to online clans and guilds as much anymore as they used to. The market has been spoiling them with the comfort of playing casual and quick games that they could pick up and drop whenever they feel like it. The NES generation is no longer the main part of the market. On the other hand though, LFR was clearly introduced because the raiding scene was dieing off... and if the raiding scene had become even smaller than it was at one point during Cata then the plug would have been pulled on designing raidcontent at all. LFR is the guardian angel of making sure people will have raids in the future, it wasn't a great or longterm solution though ... because it aided at the same time with the decline of normal or HM raiding.

There is very little doubt in my mind that in the future raiding in WoW will entirely consist out of queuing or flexi-raiding at easier difficulties.

Last edited by Prince Oberyn Martell; 2013-06-24 at 01:58 PM.

The best part is always watching the right wing rage on social media and getting banned.

The numbers don't lie, anyone who kept track of the numbers, also knows that the number of raidguilds in the past few years has been dropping considerably faster than the number of subscribers. 25m guilds were the first ones to bite the dust, but even HM and normal 10m raiding is seeing guilds die at a rapid pace ever since MoP.

The reason can be summarized very simply:"Lack of new blood."

There are many reasons why new people are having such a hard time getting into the raiding scene:

1. Applications. It's perhaps not the applications themselves that are at fault here, but mostly the high standards that many raidguilds have, they tend to only want to recruit people who have exactly the same gear as them or are ahead of them in progress and experience. People who are new to WoW usually won't gear up with anything than LFR and Valor gear and will have a very hard time getting accepted into any kind of raidguild. If guilds don't learn to lower their standards and to have a friendlier policy to letting new blood in then in the longterm they'll run out of anyone to recruit at all. This is a typical example of internet entropy, there are no governing bodies or studygroups that can investigate and prevent crises on the longterm. If WoW raiding had been a 'government' concern, then there would've been all sorts of recruitments measures that would force guilds to recruit newbies to assure longterm prosperity of the raiding scene, just to present a poignant comparison.

2. LFR. It satisfies the needs of most people nowadays. The average gamer tends to be very happy beating a game on easy-difficulty if they get to see same parts of the story. Few people will actually see the point in doing it on a harder difficulty setting, especially if this will mean time commitment. People simply don't like commiting to online clans and guilds as much anymore as they used to. The market has been spoiling them with the comfort of playing casual and quick games that they could pick up and drop whenever they feel like it. The NES generation is no longer the main part of the market. On the other hand though, LFR was clearly introduced because the raiding scene was dieing off... and if the raiding scene had become even smaller than it was at one point during Cata then the plug would have been pulled on designing raidcontent at all. LFR is the guardian angel of making sure people will have raids in the future, it wasn't a great or longterm solution though ... because it aided at the same time with the decline of normal or HM raiding.

There is very little doubt in my mind that in the future raiding in WoW will entirely consist out of queuing or flexi-raiding at easier difficulties.

Frankly, I think it's more new blood than anything else. I think WoW just isn't appealing to new people anymore, and what new people it DOES appeal to, are going to be the types that probably aren't going to want to raid for the most part. Basically.. raid content is being made for raiders that are already raiders, and if you want to raid, you're probably already doing that.

I think if you removed LFR, or had it never added rather, raiding participation would probably not change much. Maybe a little higher! Who knows.

The real problem is that WoW isn't really appealing to new people anymore, and hasn't really been since about 2010 or so. But I don't think it's just WoW, I think it's the entire MMORPG genre. I think it's a genre stuck in a time that is really out of place now a days, and it still carries so much baggage with it that most modern gamers don't want to deal with it.

1. "Applications". It's perhaps not the applications themselves that are at fault here, but examplary of mostly the high standards that many raidguilds have, they tend to only want to recruit people who have exactly the same gear as them or are ahead of them in progress and experience. People who are new to WoW usually won't gear up with anything than LFR and Valor gear and will have a very hard time getting accepted into any kind of raidguild. If guilds don't learn to lower their standards and to have a friendlier policy to letting new blood in then in the longterm they'll run out of anyone to recruit at all. This is a typical example of internet entropy, there are no governing bodies or studygroups that can investigate and prevent crises on the longterm. If WoW raiding had been a 'government' concern, then there would've been all sorts of recruitments measures that would force guilds to recruit newbies to assure longterm prosperity of the raiding scene, just to present a poignant comparison.

2. LFR. It satisfies the needs of most people nowadays. The average gamer tends to be very happy beating a game on easy-difficulty if they get to see same parts of the story. Few people will actually see the point in doing it on a harder difficulty setting, especially if this will mean time commitment. People simply don't like commiting to online clans and guilds as much anymore as they used to. The market has been spoiling them with the comfort of playing casual and quick games that they could pick up and drop whenever they feel like it. The NES generation is no longer the main part of the market. On the other hand though, LFR was clearly introduced because the raiding scene was dieing off... and if the raiding scene had become even smaller than it was at one point during Cata then the plug would have been pulled on designing raidcontent at all. LFR is the guardian angel of making sure people will have raids in the future, it wasn't a great or longterm solution though ... because it aided at the same time with the decline of normal or HM raiding.

There is very little doubt in my mind that in the future raiding in WoW will entirely consist out of queuing or flexi-raiding at easier difficulties.

Applications for decent guilds have always had stringent requirements along gear and capability. This hasn't changed. You may say the available talent pool has, though.

I can tell you the people we would have recruited for my old semi-hardcore 25s wouldn't be people who are satisfied with the LFR difficulty. It's too mindless. LFR was not introduced because the raiding scene was dying off. It was introduced because end-tier bosses were consistently seen by fewer people than Blizzard liked. They wanted to expose more people to their storylines and creations, for better or for worse.

Probably worth noting that when Easy-Mode raids were removed at the start of Cata, and the shared lockout was enforced, there was a HUGE decline in the number of Raiding guilds that's never really recovered.

some players may want things to be easy, but what they want most is convenience. if normal and heroic difficulties could be queued for then plenty of players would be doing it. same thing goes for challenge modes.

if a guild has trouble keeping raiders then i'm betting it's their own fault. almost every time i see a guild recruiting in the game or on a forum they have unrealistic expectations. they almost always want to recruit a player that's already been clearing the content they are clearing. this usually means a high ilvl and achievement/experience killing raid bosses they are already killing.

It's quite simple really. The well is drying up. There are simply fewer and fewer people that can be bothered raiding at any reasonable level of dedication and so there are fewer and fewer people in lesser raid guilds to feed the big ones. You can blame LFR for that because it did indeed give people the opportunity to play whenever they want with no reason beyond simply wanting to raid because it's fun to keep them in raid guilds. Think about that for a minute. Before, if people wanted to raid at all, they had to show up, be geared, pay attention, deal with drama and slowly progress through each tier of content. Most people don't want to do that because it's not fun for them. I had great fun doing it for years and years but now I don't have to, I don't. You can stamp your feet all you want but people don't WANT to do that anymore for the most part. It got old. It's an outdated method of raiding.

Every time I see people saying LFR is killing raiding I groan because it is true in one way but if you removed LFR, made it not drop tier, made it not drop legendaries, made it something other than it currently is then people would just stop raiding altogether and probably stop playing at all. They won't be encouraged to do more not because they are lazy incompetent mouthbreathers (though, we can all agree plenty are) but because finding a guild that raids at the times you want to raid, being geared for it, going through an application process to join it, being lootless on trial with it, dealing with all their egos and drama and groups, showing up consistently every week a few times and then slowly downing bosses as you progress through a raid anymore is a lot more work than fun for most people. Imagine if they're new to the game and haven't been doing that for years. They aren't going to want that because it is boring. Raiding is dead for everyone but those that really really love it...and I think that's a good thing.

When I used to raid back in the day there were heaps of people who would not show up to raids, noobs that would consistently gem and forge their gear HORRIBLY, trials that would beg and whine for things then -if some officer was dumb enough to give them something- instantly leave with their new shiny and all manner of stupid personal drama that I don't care remotely about in a vidya game about killing dragons. Those are the kinds of people that stopped raiding because it was boring for them. Would you really want them back? I'm sure there's still plenty of those fools around in the raid scene but come on, it can't be as bad as it was surely. The more people you have in actual raids, the more jerks you have in actual raids. Trial processes weed them out but it's long and annoying and yet another thing people get sick of eventually.

Applications for decent guilds have always had stringent requirements along gear and capability. This hasn't changed. You may say the available talent pool has, though.

I can tell you the people we would have recruited for my old semi-hardcore 25s wouldn't be people who are satisfied with the LFR difficulty. It's too mindless. LFR was not introduced because the raiding scene was dying off. It was introduced because end-tier bosses were consistently seen by fewer people than Blizzard liked. They wanted to expose more people to their storylines and creations, for better or for worse.

But if I apply to join a semi-hardcore guild in a mix of blues and some VP gear, they're going to laugh at me, or most would. The problem is that LFR is the only method available of gear catch up, certainly within a decent time frame. No one would even touch the thing with a barge pole if they could get around the fact that it is damn useful for gearing a char.

errm.. sure theres been a decline but I wouldnt exactly say the concept of organised raids and guilds is doomed.

its a fact that guilds are getting less and less applications, and the raiding population in general (excluding LFR) is shrinking. this trend will increasingly continue over time.
blizzard will come up with new ways of raiding without all the organization hassles.

I would have to say that it is in most part due to LFR. Blizzard caved when people went to the forums complaining that they "deserved" to see end game content, just like everyone else.
In the past when people wanted to see end game raiding, they worked on getting good enough at the game to get into a raid guild. When they added LFR, all of those people that would potentially have been raiders chose the easiest path available, and joined the queue for loot with their hands out.

Probably worth noting that when Easy-Mode raids were removed at the start of Cata, and the shared lockout was enforced, there was a HUGE decline in the number of Raiding guilds that's never really recovered.

Yes. I believe this is a huge part of it.

Hardcore raiding guilds draw from less progressed, more casual players - players with talent and a modicum of experience who have not yet been able to achieve their goals in their current casual guilds. Those guilds draw from even less progressed players. It's like a ladder.

When the casual guilds can't clear content (which they did in WotLK through a combination of easier 10 man raids and the ability of more hardcore raiders being able to - with split lockouts - help their "buddies" on off nights), they get frustrated and fragment. Casual players aren't willing to spend hours, days, weeks wiping on the same boss over and over again. Because, you know, they're casual.

So Blizzard closed the door on those casual players, and basically told them, "But LFR!" And, let's be honest - is there a more soul-killing experience than LFR these days? o_O Because the normal raiding door is closed, those casual guilds have, in large part, dissolved or given up. Hell - they don't even have the option to run 5 mans to get semi-good gear, so their only source of "progression" at this point is LFR. And what hardcore guild is going to take an "LFR Hero"?

On most servers (extremely high population servers excluded), it's very difficult to pug into a normal run with only LFR experience. People want a guaranteed clear, and they don't want to work hard at carrying some random who's never seen the fights on normal and doesn't understand that the shit on the ground will murder you in less than 5 seconds. So they don't take people without experience. Even on high population servers, I have watched in Trade as pugs search for hours for extra people, but repeatedly refuse those without any actual raiding experience.

So, the players who would have gone with those casual guilds and taken baby steps, as it were, towards more progressed raiding (getting just a taste of what they COULD achieve) ultimately get stuck in the label "LFR hero." And unless you KNOW someone, or happen to be lucky enough to catch the interest of a more hardcore player willing to mentor a newbie, you're stuck. You're never going to get any further outside of sheer luck.

Which means the more progressed guilds are slowly starving from lack of decent apps. There are almost no "casual" 25 man guilds at this point. If you're a 25 man, for the most part you have to be pushing for heroic progression. And 10 mans tend to have less turnover (and thus less room for newer people) than 25 mans do. So where's a casual player to go? No one is training these people, and thus we are getting absolute shit apps, making it increasingly more difficult to replace raiders that move on or get burnt out. It's a vicious cycle.

---------- Post added 2013-06-24 at 09:23 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Burnt

I would have to say that it is in most part due to LFR. Blizzard caved when people went to the forums complaining that they "deserved" to see end game content, just like everyone else.
In the past when people wanted to see end game raiding, they worked on getting good enough at the game to get into a raid guild. When they added LFR, all of those people that would potentially have been raiders chose the easiest path available, and joined the queue for loot with their hands out.

You're operating on the assumption that new people have the chance at getting into a raiding guild that will teach them the ropes and help them get to the point where they CAN go for those more progressed, end game guilds. The sad truth of the matter is that those extremely casual "trainer" guilds no longer exist. It isn't that most people want to do LFR, it's that most players don't have any other options.

In MY opinion, it is because of how Blizzard is pushing content out faster and faster. There are good points in this ofc, at least for players who run LFR as they dont have progress path, they just clear raid when it comes available and start gearing for next tier. It is VERY hard to find committed people because of this, not many people are willing to dedicate time on HC raiding that much, and I understand it totally.

Speaking of 10 and 25 sharing the lockouts I think it only helps with this scene, at least you can now get 10 motivated enough people to do that progressing. If for some reason 10 raids dropped away, the numbers would be really sad to look at. Why there were so many guilds clearing DS hc? It was out quite long (I didnt like it btw, 1 year is too long, 8 months for final tier would have been reasonable), so "bad" guilds could clear it in time as well. For some reason I support this kind of model. Rather have content out longer than let the LFR take over with current model and rushing. Even Semi-HC guilds who do run HC content would like some kind of vacation.

Seems like another generic LFR bashing thread masked with good intentions. We all know what they say about the road to hell...

There's no amount of presenting facts that will make people stop crying about this unfortunately. Take it from the horses's mouth, but most people doing LFR weren't raiding to begin with and still wouldn't have been raiding. If anything LFR is an advertisement for raiding as a whole and I wager that raiding has more interest since its inception.

There are several factors why raiding is becoming unpopular, many of them completely unrelated to the game. Things like ages of players then and now, their natural decline in time able to play the game, overall entertainment focus of 'new blood' ie younger players, etc.

This thread is going to be completely unproductive and repeat the same tired arguments that happen in just about every thread these days.

I would have to say that it is in most part due to LFR. Blizzard caved when people went to the forums complaining that they "deserved" to see end game content, just like everyone else.

Funny how I don't remember any of those threads or demands.

What I DO however remember is Rob Pardo saying the developers loved the epic experience of raiding in MMOs pre-WoW but found it too exclusive and wanted to bring the experience to as many people as possible.